Bill Raden

Bill Raden is a reporter at Capital & Main. In 2016, he was named Online Journalist of the Year by the Los Angeles Press Club, and his reporting has been recognized by the California Teachers Association with two John Swett Awards for media coverage of education in California.

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) Capital & Main is an award-winning publication that reports from California on economic, political and social issues. The American Prospect is co-publishing this piece. T he first email arrived a month before the U.S. Supreme Court's June 27 Janus v. AFSCME decision, which struck a blow against the nation’s public-sector unions. On May 17, all 35,000 teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District found personally addressed notes concerning their union, United Teachers Los Angeles, titled “UTLA’s new ‘irrevocable’ membership card.” The message had been sent on the district’s computer messaging system. Sent by “Jami” on behalf of the stridently anti-union Freedom Foundation , the email ominously warned of the “fine print” on UTLA's new, “ Janus -proofed” membership authorization form. “Be aware of UTLA’s financial motivation before granting them the power to garnish your wages indefinitely,” it cautioned before inviting recipients to “pay less” by...

(AP Photo/Richard Vogel) DACA supporters protest at the Royal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles on September 5, 2017. Capital & Main is an award-winning publication that reports from California on economic, political and social issues. The American Prospect is co-publishing this piece. “ Students were crying,” says Cristian Aguilar, recalling the Wednesday after Election Day 2016. “Parents were calling me; there was just a lot of tension, a lot of emotions. … Because whether or not they were born here, they still felt threatened. They knew someone—either their families, their friends or their neighbors—that were [going to be] affected.” The man who had famously launched his candidacy by slurring America's Latino immigrants was now the president-elect. Most of all, the students of San Jose’s nearly 80 percent Latino Hoover Middle School were acutely aware that if Donald Trump made good on his threats to revoke DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), Aguilar, their 25-...

Jack Plunkett/AP Images for Carl's Jr. CKE Restaurants CEO Andy Puzder, right, discusses Carl's Jr.'s commitment to the state of Texas during a news conference on Wednesday, August 6, 2014 in Austin, Texas. Capital & Main is an award-winning publication that reports from California on economic, political and social issues. The American Prospect is co-publishing this piece. W hen Andrew Puzder faces Senate hearings next week on his nomination as labor secretary, much of the questioning will focus on his management of CKE Restaurants, the Carpinteria-based franchiser of the national Hardee’s, Carl’s Jr., Green Burrito, and Red Burrito fast-food chains. Both Puzder and CKE have been under unflattering scrutiny since December, when Donald Trump announced the nomination , citing the fast-food executive’s “extensive record fighting for workers”—a claim disputed by critics of Puzder’s nomination who point to the fact that only last month workers at restaurants owned by CKE filed 33...